The Black Box
by Leo Bishop
Summary: A short story, part of "The Artefacts " collection. A mysterious black box appears out of the blue, accompanied by two skeletons and the CIA, and when a normal police correspondent helps with the case he realises all too quickly what it means.


**The Black Box**

Chris was an ordinary bloke. He lived in Milton, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children. His job; he worked for the local police authorities as a special consultant to help with "cold cases", cases that had been closed years ago but recently opened with new evidence. He had a vast intellect covering an array of topics and subjects but his favourite wasn't just part of his job, it was a hobby: investigating the strange. The paranormal.

As a kid, Chris loved to go ghost hunting in forests far out from town with his friends. They would camp out for the weekend with nothing to eat but sausages and marshmallows, every kids perfect weekend break. One night on one of their investigations into the woods, they thought they saw a man running through the trees. As it turns out, it was the birds spooked by the fire they had made. These little expeditions with his friends continued into his young adult life. It's how he met his wife, Susanna. Whilst he was tracking what he believed to be a creature not of this world in the dead of night, he stumbled upon a path, and down the way he saw a light becoming bigger and bigger. He heard the footsteps of at least 4 feet kicking at the leaves beneath their feet and as he back up against a tree to find cover, he tripped over. Unable to find his footing again his imagination run rampant and he believed that something was genuinely coming for him; and that's when he saw her. As the light came up to his face, it shone away and behind it he saw something beautiful. Something angelic. Definitely, in his eyes, other-worldly. It was Susanna, walking her dog. From there they went for coffee, and 10 years later they were happily married with 3 children; Jake, Millie, and Graham, all of whom aspired to be a "policeman like daddy". Even after repeatedly telling them he wasn't a policeman, they all still wanted to be an officer of the law, just like their daddy.

However, when at work one day, something happened that completely shifted his view of the world. Something horribly beautiful.

He was at the local headquarters for police looking at evidence concerning a disappearance case 30 years ago of a young woman in the local area, when a knock came at the door.

"Just one minute," he told the knocker, "can't you see I'm working?"

The reply was stiff, authoritive and concise. A simple "Yes."

Knowing the voice, and the level of power this voice had, he immediately turned from his desk, and turned on the rooms main light. Squinting his eyes at not wanting to face his visitor for his crude remark seconds earlier, he reluctantly replied; "It can wait though."

Sheriff Martin was standing at his door. His boss. The Alpha and Omega of his working life.

"That it can, Chris. We have something to discuss, if you'd like to follow me."

"What about?"

"You have a call to take."

Simply thinking it was his wife, he dismissed the thought. "If it's Susanna you can tell her-"

"It isn't." Martin cut in with. "It's the CIA. They want a word with you at a crime scene."

Chris took a second to take in what he was just told. Why would the CIA want to speak with him?

"The CIA? Wha- why? Am I in trouble?"

"Doesn't look like it. They need your help, so I hear. Now."

The next thing he knew he was being carted off to a crime scene at the edge of town. When he arrived, all he saw was black SUVs and men in suits around the area, sealing off the road either side of them and directing traffic. They pulled closer and he could see police at the road side, all the trees in about a 10 metre radius were dead, the grass was gone and the dirt was dug out. At this point all his fears started surfacing. What was there? What had happened? Paranormal activity?

He climbed out the SUV he was in and was greeted by a man striking a very familiar resemblance to some he knew.

"Good afternoon, Chris?" the smartly dressed agent asked.

"Hello sir." That was all that could leave his lips. He was so taken back by all the formality.

The agent looked behind himself, chuckled a little then turned back to face Chris. "Don't worry about all the suits, they're not as strict as everyone makes them out to be." he told him calmly. "My names Agent Samson." He held out his hand, to which Chris acknowledged by shaking it. "Chris."

There was something very familiar about agent Samson, he just couldn't put his finger on it. There was a moment of eye contact, agent Samson with a subtle smile on his face. Not even a certain one, more of an uncontrollable one.

"Well, now the definite formalities are over, let's get down to business. Roughly 8 hours ago a light was reported to be seen by the town down the road coming from these woods." at which point he directed his finger behind them. "Now, hoping to investigate this further, a local came down this road with a camera and found this site here behind our van-"

"Well, can I see-"

"We'll get to it. Anyway, a local came with his camera to the site, and found something disturbing. Two skeletons, charred and steaming, and next to them an unordinary object. A small, black box."

Chris took a moment to take it all in. He stared aimlessly out down the road and into the woods behind him. All the agents around him talking down the phones and to each other. The sound becoming too much to take, he snapped out of his day dream and turned back to Samson.

"Two skeletons and a black box, an area of dead foliage and you think calling me here will help?" His question came out a bit more aggressively than he had imagine it in his head.

"Chris, we only called you out here because you have an exceptional interest in the unexplained. You're the only resident in the near area who's known for the taste of it. That, plus we don't have the money to bring an expert out here at the rates they charge."

"Is that meant to be a joke?"

Samson was a little taken back at Chris' suddenly aggressive attitude. "It was, yes. Obviously it didn't work."

At this point, Chris was a little wound up at how he hadn't seen anything worthwhile. So, with a teeming curiosity, he walked around the van. As the site came into view, he slowly peered over the little ditch off the roadside to see a deep hole, no deeper than 4 metres, and inside it sure enough were two skeletons, steaming slightly, and a black box. It must have been about the length of a laptop and half a metre in height. Chris stepped down to take a closer look at it, and he could see odd inscriptions engraved onto each side. Glyphs of sorts. No sort of language or letters he himself recognised.

"Do we know who the skeletons are?" he promptly asked Samson.

"No. At first we thought that they could have been two passers by, hikers, but the locals have all said no one goes down this road at night. Too dangerous. They could have been from out of town, but we've taken DNA samples from them and someone's already taken them back for analysis. We should have results in 6 hours or so."

"Okay then."

Chris then inspected the box further. He reached to grab it, at which point an agent inside the site stopped his hand, giving him a look of caution.

"It's alright, I'm just taking a look." Slowly, he put his fingers down onto the top of the box.

Nothing. No strange phenomena. No burns. No electric shock, no visions of the future, no explosions. So, with a clear head, he swiftly grabbed it and lifted it up.

It was light, and couldn't have weighed more than his sons games console. He took it out of the site, and walked to agent Samson.

"I don't suppose you mind me taking this back home for a closer look do you? Run diagnostics on it, see if and how it works?"

Samson remained silent at this request, and steered his focus over to his superior, to which he gave a precise nod. Turning back to Chris, Samson gave Chris a look into his eye. It was a certainty, an acknowledging look.

"Thank you."

"Just make sure you have it back with us in 24 hours. If I had it my way, you could keep it as long as you needed but unfortunately there other people within our organisation who want to take a look at it."

"No problem. I'll keep in touch with you."

"It's fine. We'll come to you."

Shaking hands, Chris was directed back into the SUV by the driver, and as he pulled away from the site he just couldn't place the familiarity of Samson anywhere.

Back at home, Chris prepared his study. Clearing his desk and putting files back into his cabinet drawers, he placed the box onto the now clear desk top. He turned on his desks lamp, got out new blueprint sheets and got out different wires and probing devices. He turned his computer on, waited for the loading to finish, and loaded up a diagnostics program. All the while, he felt a strange feeling coming from the box. A feeling of un-belonging. Of the unordinary, and it felt like he was being stared at by it the whole time.

He continued on, despite these bad feelings, and attached electrodes to each side of the box and plugged the running wires into a small, separate box that plugged into the computer. He then turned on the separate box, turning little dials and pressing buttons rapidly.

Suddenly, on screen, everything spiked. He saw waves running all over and numbers going higher and higher, different equations appearing on drop-down sections and colours flashing on the separate device. He looked more closely and saw everything was out of place; the box was vibrating constantly at 5.5 megahertz, resonating at a such a high pitch that the audio had numbers running off screen, and it's mass exceeded that of anything on earth. Even Earth.

At such a speed, he turned to the computer and started working on the equations popping up on screen, but none of them made any sense. As far as the laws of physics were concerned, the box shouldn't exist.

Then, as he turned a dial round on the device, he saw one of the glyphs glow a dim blue. Turning back and staring at the box, he adjusted the dial again, turning it slowly back down. Then he saw it again, the box flashed a blue. Knowing that he had just touched upon something, he ever so slightly turned the dial back up half a millimetre. He had it; the glyph on the box was staying a steady blue.

Chris fixated his vision on the engraving. It was entrancing. There was something about it's fluency that was pleasurable. Safe. He ran his finger down the glyph, and he heard a click. And another. And again. He turned around to pinpoint this strange click, and saw Susanna standing at the door.

"Are you okay honey?" she softly asked, with a look of distress in her eye.

"I'm fine, why? What's the matter? You looked terrified?"

Her look then turned into an even more worrying stare.

"Chris… You've been looking at that box for four hours straight."

"No I haven't, it's only quarter to three-"

As the words left his mouth, however, he saw out of the corner of his eye on his desks clock that it read 18:40.

Then he felt suddenly sick. Not anything to do with the box, but out of confusion. How could he have just blacked out for a whole 3 hours for it to only feel like 2 minutes?

The box.

"No, I'm fine. I'm just a bit tired. I'll be out for dinner in a bit, okay?" With a smile on his face to reassure his loving wife he was 100% fine.

And, softly, she returned the smile simply saying "Okay." Not a dismissive okay, but a calm, collected okay. As if everything in her world was okay. As if thousands of stresses and worries were lifted off her shoulders, and she left the room.

Knowing now that not everything about the box was simple, Chris unplugged all of the wires and electrodes and violently took up the box. The glow, however, didn't turn off with the dials detached from it. It turned a deep red, at which point all the electrics in the house suddenly switched off. Lights bulbs blew out, and the clock flickered 00:00 on and off.

Chris walked out into the main living area, where Susanna met him, crying and shaking.

"Chris, what's going on?!"

"I don't know honey, just calm down and take a deep breath!"

In his hands, he felt the box violently shake and then vibrate rapidly. The red glow became more intense. Then, all of a sudden, every other glyph started to light up the same deep red. The ceiling then started to fall apart. The windows could be heard upstairs smashing. The same happened downstairs only two seconds later, glass shattering all over the floor. As the house around them started to crumble, Chris kept a firm grasp on the box without even wanting to. His mind and body were telling him to drop it and run, but it's as if the box wouldn't let him.

Becoming more and more hysterical, Susanna took a strong hold on Chris' arm.

"Susanna, where are the children?!"

"They're staying at the Samsons house. I- I took them over to go visit but they- they wanted to stay for the night with their friends for a- a sleepover-"

She then completely broke down and collapsed to the floor, debris falling over her head.

Chris's eyes then widened. Everything made sense to him. There was a reason he was called out today. There was a reason for the box falling into his house and, with this thought, a happy smile took up his face. A calm came over him, knowing what was going to happen. His whole body became more relaxed, and the box fell out of his hands to the floor. He then picked Susanna up, pushed her hair behind her ears, looked deep into her eyes and softly kissed her as a red glow engulfed them, emanating from the box. The last thing Chris could remember was a strong heat against his face, before a sense of sleep took him.

He opened his eyes to a nice sight. The noise had stopped. Everything was silent, and Susanna was looking at him smiling, the light behind her becoming brighter and brighter. She turned around and started walking and Chris, knowing everything was okay, followed her without hesitation. Then the light dimmed down, and he felt a warm sense take him as he closed his eyes for the last time.


End file.
